Could LA's Next Suburb Pop Up in the Middle of Nebraska?

Elon Musk, we thank you in advance for liberating us from our planes, trains, boats, and automobiles with your Hyperloop.

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By now you have likely heard about the Hyperloop, Elon Musk's rapid "fifth mode" of transportation that sounds as fantastic as Nikola Tesla's thought camera but has the world abuzz nonetheless. He claims it "can never crash," will be "immune to weather," and will "cost you much less than an air ticket or car because the fundamental energy cost is so much lower."

Who wouldn't want that?

Musk tweeted he will release his alpha design for the system by August 12. Until then we are all wilting in shabby train stations and wandering cavernous airports where our flights are delayed indefinitely.

We are in desperate need of some innovation in transportation technology as cars, boats, trains, and planes now seem stuck in another century. So what's mandatory in next-gen transit?
"Well, it has to be consistent, punctual, and frequent," explains David Bragdon, former big corporate logistics guy, taxi driver, and elected official of the Portland Metro. Today he's as enthusiastic as a schoolboy when he talks about his latest gig: getting people onto transit and fighting for commuters as the executive director of the TransitCenter, a New York City-based non-profit. "Reliability," he adds, "is very important."

One of the most incredible ideas is the self-driving cara concept Google, Toyota, and Audi are already working on. It's a smart notion based on two main economic drivers: the combustion engine and computing. Some believe this solution is still flawed however.

"Based on understanding the movement of vehicles in the city, if you put a million driverless cars on the street you still have gridlock," says livability and sustainable development expert Dan Slone of McGuire Woods.

Musk's Hyperloop idea is so seductive because he's not suggesting using an existing infrastructure but rather advocating for building a new, reliable, and affordable oneone which we'll interact with in an entirely new way.

Eminent domain anyone? We must consider where the land for such a structure will come from and we can learn a lot from the politics regarding the Keystone XL pipeline. Just last week journalist Maria Bartiromo echoed policy, business, and political leaders in calling this energy land-grab a "game-changer" for jobs and domestic energy. Meanwhile, organizations like Bold Nebraska fight tooth and nail to defeat it and preserve farms and land.

High-speed rail efforts have already slammed headfirst into this land challenge. In the Northeast, space is at such a premium that Amtrak's premier high-speed rail service, the Acela, has to share tracks with commuter and freight lines. Likewise, California's high-speed "bullet train" will have to share space with commuter trains.

Then there are the questions of time and volume. The California system is set to break ground this summer and will offer service between San Francisco and Los Angeles in less than three hours. Musk's Hyperloop is projected to make the same journey in just 30 minutesabout the time it takes me to get from Brooklyn to Midtown Manhattan on the C train. If we assume the Hyperloop will be three to four times faster than the bullet train, as Musk speculates, will it be able to handle the high demand that speed will undoubtedly create?

Aside from traveling by train, people like to fly and we do so regularly, whether it's from Richmond to Washington D.C. or from New York to Hong Kong. The space station-like Dubai airport has multiple gates to every city imaginable and beyond and people from every corner of the globe mingle at chain restaurants and coffee shops. Being in it feels like stepping into the futureit feels like the way humans were meant to travel.

Why is flying so expensive? "Global oil prices," explains Robert Richardson of the technology consulting firm The Control Group. "This is the reason for the [high] prices now and all the weight restrictions, because half of every flight is reserved for cargo freight that pays a higher percentage than customers," explained Robert Richardson of the technology consulting firm The Control Group. Most of the exorbitant energy use occurs during take-off and landing.

How does Musk's Hyperloop solve that? In an interview with PandoMonthly last year, Musk said the system could be "self-powering if you put solar panels on it" and could "generate more power than you consume in the system . . . . There's a way to store power so it would run 24/7 without using batteries. Yes, this is possible, absolutely," he said.

Price and fuel guzzling aren't the only concerns. "Some airports have so much congestion," said Bragdon, noting that the very nature of air traffic control does not distinguish between a plane bound for London and one headed to Hartford. Each takes up the same air traffic control capacity.

"There is clearly a winning business model for air travel to be discovered, but it would require some serious changes about the politics of airports," said Richardson.

These political, fuel, and infrastructure challenges feel intractable. What we need is an innovative technology like Musk's Hyperloop. I say we charge forward and disrupt the heck out of the transportation sector. If California can pull it off, I think other states will follow. It won't be easy though. We'll need smart scientists and engineers to pay attention when Musk releases his designs, which he plans to publish as open source. We'll also need some savvy and risk-tolerant policy decision makers to take a leap.

"Is LA's sprawl suddenly going to be in the middle of Nebraska?" asks Bragdon. If the Hyperloop succeeds, that question won't seem so ridiculous.

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin is a PCMag.com contributor. For over a decade has been a passionate voice for the planet and its people. He is the author of Green Deen: What Islam Teaches About Protecting the Planet and contributor to All-American: 45 American Men On Being Muslim. Ibrahim is a former sustainability policy advisor to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Outward Bound instructor. In 2002 he helped to found the Brooklyn Academy for Science and the Environment. Ibrahim has blogged since 2004 as the Brooklyn...
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